Key Hearing Set For August In Bashara Murder Case

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DETROIT (WWJ/AP) – Prosecutors say he hired a handyman to kill his wife last year, and this week a hearing has been rescheduled for Bob Bashara, who is accused of arranging Jayne Bashara’s death in Grosse Pointe Park.

Bashara’s preliminary hearing had initially been planned for Tuesday in 36th District Court in Detroit. The Wayne County prosecutor’s office said those involved agreed to hold it Aug. 19 instead.

Jane Bashara’s body was found in her Mercedes-Benz, which was left in a Detroit alley in January 2012, a few miles from the couple’s home in Grosse Pointe Park.

Joseph Gentz, who’d done odd jobs for the Basharas, pleaded guilty to strangling the 56-year-old woman, saying he did so under orders from her husband who paid him for the task. In a deal with prosecutors, Gentz agreed to testify against his former employer.

Bob Bashara is charged with first-degree murder. He’s already serving up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to trying to hire someone to kill Gentz while the handyman was in the county jail.

The case has drawn national attention with tales that Bashara secretly ran a sex dungeon in the basement of one of his businesses and was known in chat rooms and at S&M parties as “Master Bob. “